RIO DE JANEIRO -- The first time Chloe Dygert stepped aboard the track bike she will be using along with her womens pursuit teammates, she completely missed what caught everybody elses attention.The drive train is on the left side.Yes, just about every bike youve ever seen has the crank on the right, from the high-tech bikes in the Olympic road race to the inexpensive bikes in sporting-goods stores to the itsy-bitsy bikes with training wheels for toddlers just learning to ride.Then it hit me, Dygert said, like, `Oh, yeah! Thats different.USA Cycling, bike manufacturer Felt and several component partners spent more than two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars -- if not millions -- to build the cutting-edge track bike.High-performance coach Neal Henderson said it should save more than 3 seconds off their U.S. squads pursuit time. And that is an eternity considering the women posted a world record of 4 minutes, 16.18 seconds at the world championships in March on their old bikes.Silver medalist Canada and bronze medalist New Zealand were 4 seconds off their pace.We zigged when others zagged, Henderson said with a smile.The drive train is only part of the equation. The bike also takes into consideration specific aerodynamics of a velodrome for the first time, resulting in an asymmetrical stance to account for yaw, specially shaped tubes and high-end carbon that produces a feather-light ride.Its a leap. I wouldnt say its Fosbury Flop-level, Henderson said, referring to Dick Fosburys revolutionary high jump technique, but its an advance.One that could advance the Americans to the top step of the podium.Their pursuit squad that will begin chasing gold Thursday won silver at the London Games, albeit with a significantly different lineup. Sarah Hammer is the only rider back and is joined by a bunch of 19- and 20-somethings in Dygert, Kelly Catlin, Jennifer Valente and Ruth Winder.I didnt take it for granted when I was asked to be on this team, Dygert said.They will be pushed by reigning gold medalist Britain, a powerful team from Canada and a banged-up Australian squad that fell heavily in training Tuesday but is still planning to compete.But the first order of business is qualifying. The finals do not take place until Saturday.The only medal up for grabs on the opening day of the track program is mens team sprint, where Britain will try to begin a similar gold rush to their one at the London Games.Jason Kenny teamed with Chris Hoy and Philip Hindes to win the team sprint four years ago, and the home nation went on to win seven gold medals during the track program. The powerful showing came after a similarly dominant effort at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.The British team pursuit squad will also be in the velodrome Thursday to begin chasing another gold medal. And some star power returned to the squad in former Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins, who won the London Games time trial before largely retiring from the road.He is back to his roots on the track, where he won the individual pursuit at the 2004 Athens Games and the Beijing Games, and was part of the team pursuit squad that won gold the same year.Wiggins can break a tie with Hoy and become Britains most decorated Olympian with a medal.Ive gone through this process to try to win a gold medal, really, and anything less than a gold would be a huge disappointment, Wiggins said. Something would have to go seriously wrong.Mark Cavendish and the rest of the British team hit the track later in the program.One of the big questions surrounding the Rio Games was whether the velodrome would be completed in time. The $56 million facility missed several deadlines and went through several contractors, and delays forced the cancellation of a test event scheduled for March.It received mixed reviews from riders who began training there this week.Its a hard track to try and go for the record on just because of the shape, Australian rider Sam Welsford said. Its got longer straights and shorter bends. The venue is incredible, there is still a lot going on -- you see cables laying around all over the place, but all that matters is the track is ready and race day we are ready to go. Black Friday Shoes China . 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McPhee said that Ovechkins father Mikhail is in stable condition after having the surgery this week and is no longer in intensive care. "Weve told him to stay as long as necessary with your dad," he said. Ovechkin and his Russian national team were eliminated from the mens hockey tournament in Sochi on Wednesday with a 3-1 quarter-final loss to Finland. As I skirted The Oval two Fridays back, a couple of hours before Surrey faced Kent in what turned out to be both teams final game in this years T20 Blast competition, the PA was playing Massive Attacks anthem to paranoia, Angel, its wall of guitars powering towards a sky beginning to bank with dark clouds, miles long. Behind the gasometers, the new cityscape loomed.By the time Jason Roy and Aaron Finch walked out to open the Surrey innings, the aircraft-warning lights on the tallest buildings were blinking red against the purple. Finch was the world No. 1-ranked T20 batsman but he struggled to find his timing. Roy didnt, though. The ball started to crack from his bat, and didnt stop. He hit thunderously, and as I watched from the third tier of the Bedser Stand, his power took on a different dimension, the speed of the ball through the air, along the ground and past the fielders newly apparent.Finch finally got himself going with a giant six into the second tier of the pavilion. Dominance subtly challenged, Roy followed him, and then hit an even bigger one over the longest boundary at deep midwicket and into the crowd. It was sci-fi batting in a spectacular setting, the old gasometers dark and hulking, and just as WG would have seen them when he made his famous 224 not out here in 1866, a few days after his 18th birthday, and in the distance the gleaming Shard, which he couldnt have imagined even in his grand old age. It was ominous for Kent, whose bowlers were taken apart. Roy finished with 120 from 62 deliveries, Finch 79 from 51.A few years ago I interviewed a golf coach called Denis Pugh. I asked him about the young players hed seen, and who would be the best.A boy called Rory McIlroy, he said, his voice becoming reverential. The ball makes a completely different sound when he hits it…Roy has something of that same quality. His progress may have been jagged - and in the next innings I saw him play, he was out first ball, at Lords - but the top end of his talent reaches Shard-like heights. He strikes with just the little extra that Pugh heard as McIlroy compressed his golf ball against the club face.As Roy laid waste to The Oval, soome of Englands younger Lions basked in the sunshine of a 50-over tri-series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan.dddddddddddd In four games Ben Duckett made an unbeaten 220 not out and a 163 not out, Sam Billings a 175 and Daniel Bell-Drummond a 171 not out (Dawid Malan, of some vintage at 28, also made a 185 not out). Andy Flower, a man who knew cricket before this madness took hold, must have understood, as he watched them that the T20 generation was suddenly, thrillingly, here. Players who could not remember cricket without the format - Duckett was yet to turn nine during that first season of 2003 - are now professionals, and the way that they play the game is deeply imbued with that background. It is a challenge not just to them, but also to us.I watched the Surrey and Kent players warm up at The Oval. In the nets, coaches used dog-throwers and wore helmets. Every ball was hammered like a mallet on a nail. Bats were a blur. The quality of strike from Billings and Bell-Drummond and Finch was stunning seen from up close, and it contextualised further Roys innings (they hit it well; he hit it better). This generation is massing beneath Englands flowering white-ball teams and its less-certain Test batting side. In these transitory years of technique and method, we dont seem quite sure if, or how, some of these sublime talents can take their game across all formats.But in a summer when Test matches outside of London have not sold out (as I write this, there are banks of empty seats at Edgbaston for the final day of the third Test, with all results possible), Roy is the kind of player who will fill grounds, as is Jos Buttler, and Im sure in future Duckett, Bell-Drummond and Billings will too.It may be playing devils advocate to say so, but we may have to lessen our regard for conventional technique and conventional ways of failing if were to fully open the future to a generation that can keep the long-form game alive in ways that make sense to them and their children.That future looms over us now, here and ready. ' ' '